Midwest's best coming to Battle Creek for Border Wars
BorderWars Nationals combines elite youth and prep wrestling under one roof
10/31 - The Border Wars Nationals will be getting underway tommorow morning in Battle Creek with high school and 13-14yr old action at Kellogg Arena. The high school division will feature a large number of Michigan's best as well as some nationally ranked stars from the Midwest.
The youth wrestling will take place Sunday and will feature many members of the MI Grappler Youth Dream Team, along with some top tier youths from Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, among other states.
Read below for a preview of some of the notable wrestlers to keep an eye on this weekend.
YOUTH
Looking at the youth entries, many of the elite youth level wrestlers in the state will be in Battle Creek this weekend. Most notably, the MI Grappler 2008 Wrestler of the Year Mark Hall along with his fellow Youth Dream Teamers from the CMS wrestling club Dominic Sutermeister, Nathan Ellis, Jacob Madrigal, and Justin Oliver. In all, at least 9 members of last year's MI Grappler Youth Dream Team are slated to be in attendance this weekend. In addition, we counted 22 members of the Michigan Grappler Fab 50 in the pre-registered list.
Michigan Grappler Fab 50 members pre-registered:
Angus Arthur , Zack Cooper , Jahron Coulson, Nathan Ellis , Chris Fauson, Jerry Fenner, Gage Gillam, Nicolas Gillam, Anthony Gonzales, Shabo Gorial, Taylor Grenawalt, Mark Hall, Andrew Hughes, Jesus Jimenez, Jacob Madrigal, Brenden McRill, Justin Oliver, Lincoln Olson, Shon Powell, Eric Rogers III, Dominic Sutermeister
In addition to the top tier Michigan kids who will be in attendance, some nationally proven out-of-staters will be coming to Kellogg this weekend as well. Among the notable out of state wrestlers include Josh Alber of Illinois, who was an Asics Folkstyle National runner up last year.
HIGH SCHOOL
The high school division this weekend should be packed with not only Michigan state placers and champions, but from out of state as well.
Two of the top lightweights in the country, Tony Ramos of Illinois and Jesse Thielke of Wisconsin are both slated to be at Border Wars this weekend. Ramos is currently ranked #1 in the country by Amateur Wrestling News while Thielke is #10 at 119lbs.
The lightweights could feature some good matchups with Thielke, Ramos and a ton of Michigan state placers. Returning D2 state champ Andrew Stepanovich of FHN should be around 119-130lbs, along with state placers Don Gorman, Matt Frisch, Robbie Bidlingmaier, Ben Matthieson, Anthony Pavlich, and Leon Shannon.
Looking over the list of pre-registered wrestlers we saw at least 15 returning Michigan state placers from a year ago (keep in mind that this exludes any late or walk up entries). In addition to Ramos and Thielke, another freestyle all-american to watch will be Colton Rasche of Illinois, who placed last spring at the Fila Cadet Freestyle Nationals at 127lbs.
Stay tuned during the day Saturday for updates from Kellogg.
